Gift
by Silent Yuli
Summary: [AU] [Rape] [Love Triangle] Was he a vision, or just a desperate wish? Either way, these hallucinations were her connection to something, something strong and powerful...
1. Prologue

Gift

By Silent Yuli

A/N: This is my first fic. This prologue is just a teaser; hopefully you guys will bet interested. Please review!

Summary[AU [Rape [Love Triangle Was he a vision, or just a desperate wish? Either way, these hallucinations were her connection to something, something strong and powerful

Prologue

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It was all wrong. Sakura's stomach clenched and the dark room spun as she felt the hem of her nightgown be tentatively pushed up by inexperienced hands. Her fingers clutched the sheets at her sides, her palms sweaty and wetting the light cotton where she gripped it like it was a lifeline.

"Is this okay?"

"...Yeah."

She had never imagined it would be like this. When she pictured the moment when she and Neji finally found the courage to consummate their marriage, she pictured roses, a golden glow bathing everything, and tender smiles and sighs. Not sweaty palms and quivering, inept bodies in their shadowed, painfully silent bedroom.

"Am I hurting you?"

She bit her lip as tears of pain sprang to her eyes. "No."

Even though it technically was expected of a married couple, what was happening seemed, in Sakura's mind, totally unprecedented. Earlier he'd returned from a mission, caked in dirt and blood and exhausted, which was to be expected of one of Konoha's top ninja, and was what Sakura had become accustomed to.

Neji was never unkind, merely unfamiliar. In their three years of marriage she had never had anything to honestly complain about: he always made sure she was eating well and bought her gifts constantly, most likely to make up for what this marriage they'd been forced into clearly lacked.

Tonight, after changing and showering they'd eaten dinner in the dining room, across from each other at the long, shiny lacquered table. There was little conversation. Neji seemed troubled; he was clumsy which was extremely unlike him and wolfed down his food. But Sakura had thought little of it; she'd been too busy going over the dreams and visions she'd been having to pay much attention to her husband's behavior. After finishing dinner, Sakura had retired to the bedroom early.

She'd felt his clammy hand touch her side nervously. In another situation, it would have been funny: a man who battled S-class criminals mercilessly by the day was too scared to touch his own wife after five years of marriage by night. Still half-asleep she'd merely murmured his name, but her eyes snapped open and she was yanked from her dream world as she felt herself being forced slowly onto her back. As a dark shadow hovered over her anxiously, her keen mind put together what was happening and she didn't resist him; it had to happen eventually, right?

For awhile she stared at the ceiling, but of course, as always, the one she'd been dreaming about for two weeks captured her synapses again and roughly pulled her away from her memories. It was another vision, this time he was sleeping, his beautiful face twisted as he writhed and sweat, crying out what Sakura intrinsically knew were his parents' names. His nightmare dragged her away from the bed with Neji and she gasped as her sight was clouded by bodies, bloodied and lying dead all around.

She clawed at the sheets as an unbearable pain seized her heart, worse than the pain her husband was inflicting on her body. She didn't know these people and yet she knew they were important, somehow, and she cried out when she saw a young man with a katana standing over a corpse, his long, thick black hair shrouding his face. Momentarily she was brought back to reality when Neji's lips crushed hers, painfully, but the vision stole her away again, and she saw the beautiful man, the one whose mind she'd been caught in so often the past two weeks. She felt as though she were trying to tread water in turbulent water, her mind bobbed from the bed with her husband which felt like being trapped underwater, to the stunning and confusing clarity of surfacing and seeing this man she technically did not know. Her body burned with empathetic pain and as her vocal chords contracted to cry out again, a name she didn't know she'd known formed on her lips and she spoke it:

"Sasuke!"

Suddenly, the motion stopped and she was ripped from this man Sasuke and his frenzied state, and she realized Neji had long ago entered her and the pain in between her legs was refreshed. She gasped again when she saw Neji's livid face.

"How the fuck do you know Sasuke?"

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	2. 1: Shadowed

A/N: I just want you guys to know that this fic is NOT bashing Neji. He is a good guy in this fic but I realize he might in the beginning come across as a villain, but he is NOT. Also, PLEASE review.

Chapter One: Shadowed

It was late at night, and all along the country road there was silence, disturbed only by the faint rustling of the leaves in the night air. There was inky blackness all around, so dark that it was impossible to see at all. The stars and moon were covered by clouds that night.

A nervous traveler, lost and confused, stumbled along the dirt road, shivering and twitching with fear. For a good hour, he'd been pausing every few seconds, sure that someone, something, was following him. Now he stopped again, glancing around, his breath clouding in the freeing air. Beads of cold sweat dripped down his temples as he turned on his heel cautiously.

"C-come out, come out, wherever you are..." He mumbled, his breath catching in his throat.

His call was met with silence. He laughed nervously to himself, turning around to walk again—but froze.

On the side of the road, within the forest, several pairs of glowing red eyes gazed at him like demons from hell.

"F-fuck, holy shit...!" He fell backwards, still facing the eyes, staring at him with an eerie patience. Scrambling to his feet, he tore off down the path, away from them, his legs quivering with each clumsy hurdle.

There was a shrill screech; the unmistakable sound of something sharp being thrown. The traveler turned his head to look just in time to see the kunai impale his back. Blood spurted out and he fell again, this time to his knees. He cried out in pain, and attempted to wrench the kunai from his back, but it was no use.

Just as his bowels released and his vision was about to die completely, he was sure he saw those glowing red eyes hovering before him, underneath black cloaks. His last thought as he died was the flicker of a memory of an old folk tale his father had told him so many years ago: the tale of the Sharingan, the weapon of the devil himself. Those fabled swirling red eyes were before him now and looked on as he drew his last withering breath.

--

So the name of the man who had come in between them was Sasuke Uchiha.

Tantalizing flashes of him came to her intermittently. Oftentimes she'd awaken, mouth dry and her frail body trembling, these visions of obsidian eyes playing in her head in pieces, but slowly waning and blurring as she drifted further from her sleepy state. The dream would dangle out of her reach for a while, and then be pulled away almost completely. Tonight, he had killed someone, she was sure of it. A road—it was so dim though, that he could have been anywhere.

Was he a vision, or just a desperate wish? Either way, these hallucinations were her connection to something, something strong and powerful. When she was dreaming, she could be part of Sasuke Uchiha, and she felt mighty. Wisps of her soul were intertwined with his, and when he threw a kunai at an enemy, she could feel herself throwing the kunai too, and it always hit the target.

It was as though she were looking into a mirror constantly, for she could always both see from Sasuke's point of vision, but also see Sasuke. The duality of her visions made them all the more confounding, and the effect was the dizzying sensation of circuitousness. She felt omniscient and in control as never before, and yet she knew all along that she would soon wake up to being pathetic, bored, depressed Sakura Hyuuga.

The night she'd made the connection to Sasuke, fireflies were everywhere. She'd crept into the balmy summer night air, more overcome with despair than she'd been in a long time. The trees swayed with the light breeze and rustled, creating a peaceful and serene energy that filled Sakura and somehow managed to lead her to the stream.

Filled with the feeling of benevolent energy she'd stumbled down the dirt road and past fields in her lacy pink silk nightgown, knowing the direction inexplicably. It was as though she were being led and she didn't resist it. The sound of rushing water added to the night air and she knew she was where she'd been meant to be.

The water reflected the light of the fireflies and that combined with the light from the full moon allowed her to see her own quavery reflection. She didn't like her face, she always thought she gave off a sense of weakness, and more than anything she desired strength.

But still she gazed at the image, watching it twist and warp until suddenly—and she _knew_ it wasn't a trick of her tired eyes, she _knew_ it had happened—her own pale face and roseate hair morphed into the face of a devastatingly handsome man with obsidian eyes and hair, looking right at her... and then her own face returned.

Sasuke possessed her, she was fascinated by him, she wanted to be him. And for short periods of time, she was him. She was something greater, something _magical._

And come hell or high water, Neji was not taking that away from her.

His hands were quivering, but now in fury. He sat back up, seemingly forgetting that he was completely nude before his wife. Meanwhile, Sakura lay on the bed, torn inside. Part of her was willing to cave in, to coax Neji back to her, cooing and whispering and making him forget the whole thing. But the other part of her, the part that had lay dormant inside of her for her entire life, was like a raging feral beast.

Her chest was still heaving and the pain was dulled now but made more significant by the white hot fire in Neji's eyes, full of anger.

"Why would you know about that rotten man!?" He hissed, grabbing a fistful of her hair. But even as he did this, he hesitated. He was not accustomed to being unkind to his wife, in fact, not accustomed to dealing with his wife at all. To him, she was a mystery. Her big, sad jade eyes looked up at him now, startlingly clear and unafraid. He let go of her short roseate hair.

There was deafening silence as Neji slumped, defeated. "You must have heard me talking to another ANBU about it." He was giving her a way out, because he didn't know what else to do. What could be done, when as one's wife climaxed she cried out the name of one's sworn enemy?

He was a failure, that much he knew.

Sakura nodded wordlessly. Neji closed his eyes and lay down again on top of her, but not resting his full weight on her delicate body. Everything about her seemed so fragile. To think of the things they had done just now was disturbing: she could have been broken.

As Sakura slowly placed her hands on Neji's back, she closed her eyes, trying desperately to recall the vision in full detail. But it was too dark, too blurred. Perhaps Sasuke had been feeling some strong emotion, and his sight was blurred by it.

But again Neji shifted his weight and she realized he intended to take her again. She scrunched her eyes shut tight, praying to see Sasuke and not experience this nightmare.

--


End file.
